Water Works

Communities thirst for key to development

By Jeremy Harrell

It's right there on the state license plate.

At the top, sandwiched between the word "Wisconsin" and the farm is a boat. The boat is nice, but the more important element is the blue line the boat is resting on, symbolizing the state's many lakes and rivers. Wisconsin's waters are as fundamental to the landscape as dairy farms, and plentiful fresh water is a big reason people move to Wisconsin and stay. For generations, residents and visitors have assumed that Wisconsin's water would be abundant and everlasting.

People who live in southeastern Wisconsin are now learning different. Two institutions, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission and Milwaukee's Public Policy Forum, have embarked on long-term studies to identify both the quantity and quality of the region's drinking water.

In a prospectus preparing SEWRPC for its water study, the commission aptly pointed out that the region's rapid economic growth is due in large part to a seemingly never-ending supply of drinking water.

But the two aquifers, enormous natural underground water reservoirs, that lie beneath the western part of SEWRPC's seven-county area are beginning to show signs of wear. The deeper sandstone aquifer is being rapidly drawn down, creating increased concentrations of naturally occurring
radium, a substance banned in even small quantities by the federal government.

The shallower aquifer is also growing more unstable, and seasonal fluctuations make it unreliable as a long-term source of water.

"Properly husbanded, these water resources can serve the region for all time to come," the prospectus states. "Misused and mismanaged, however, these resources can become a severe constraint on the sound social, economic and physical development of the region."

Fortunately, the SEWRPC region is bordered on the east by the largest pool of fresh water in the world: Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes chain it's connected to.

The SEWRPC prospectus notes that the urge to tap Lake Michigan to slake the growing thirst in Waukesha, Washington, Walworth and other counties is a serious consideration.

But it won't be easy, if it's even ever done. There's a confluence of geological and political forces at work, involving interstate bodies and international law, local governments and scientists, as well as the people who will use the water. To solve the problem, southeastern Wisconsin could become a model of regional cooperation, or it could dissolve into bitter factionalism, balkanizing the more than 150 local governments that dot the seven-county area. Signs are now pointing toward either.

"There's a golden opportunity for [regional cooperation] to happen," said Jeffrey Browne, president of Public Policy Forum. "There's also a great opportunity for it to usher in a feudal war, a medieval war to protect turf. Water doesn't know any political boundaries."

Early skirmishes are already beginning to break out. In the last year, Mukwonago, Germantown, East Troy and Eagle have fallen into border disputes with their smaller surrounding communities over where to site drinking-water wells.

"There have been more conflicts with regard to well sitings in the last year than I've ever seen before," said Bob Biebel, chief environmental planner for SEWRPC.

"These kinds of conflicts are becoming more and more common."

Don Wilton, the chairman of the Eagle Town Board, asserts that water is quickly surpassing petroleum as the most coveted natural resource. In his view, larger communities are almost like oil wildcatters in Texas, drilling for water to the detriment of their smaller neighbors. "It's going to be a huge issue," Wilton said of the region's water supply.

Still, Biebel doesn't yet see this as an urgent problem. After all, the aquifers beneath the western part of the SEWRPC region took millennia to fill up, and it's not as if they're going to go dry in a few years. But there are clear indications of distress.

People who live in the seven-county region might not realize that there's a subcontinental divide that separates the Lake Michigan basin from the rest of Wisconsin.

The divide runs on a north-south axis just west of the Milwaukee-Waukesha county border, on a line that mirrors the path of Sunnyslope Road. Water to the west of the divide ultimately drains into the Mississippi River, while water on the east eventually makes its way into Lake Michigan. The region's two aquifers on are the western side.

Right now, 62 percent of the area's population lives on the eastern side of the divide. But that's not where the growth will be. By 2020, SEWRPC predicts, the western side will see a 20 percent increase in growth, compared to 8 percent in the east. During the same time, water usage in the west is expected to rise from 93 million gallons per day to 112 million gallons per day, according to the commission.

People living in the inland portions of the seven-county region rely almost exclusively on the two aquifers. The shallow aquifer is ill equipped to deal with the spiking demand without dealing lasting damage to the rivers, wetlands, lakes and streams that replenish it. The deep sandstone aquifer, meanwhile, is already showing "relatively rapid" declines in water levels, according to SEWRPC, and municipalities and businesses are drilling deeper and deeper to get at the precious liquid.

The only problem is that as the drills go farther in the earth, water quality diminishes because it's more contaminated with radium and other detrimental solids and chemicals. And as the supply becomes more tenuous, the costs of extracting the water will rise in proportion, according to SEWRPC.

The SEWRPC study, which is expected to wrap up by the end of 2006, will attempt to find the best supply sources and map out a possible strategy for supplying the region with water. "The quantity issues aren't urgent, but it's something that has to be managed properly or else it will become urgent," Biebel said.

The picture for Milwaukee and other lakeside communities is a bit rosier because they pull virtually all of their drinking water straight from Lake Michigan. Indeed, Milwaukee has a water surplus, and two of the city's water-treatment and pumping plants have declined in operation in the last few years, according to SEWRPC.

Neighboring communities such as Menomonee Falls and New Berlin, which both lie on the eastern side of the subcontinental divide, are taking advantage of their geographic edge and building several-million-dollar projects to draw water from the lake.

As the SEWRPC prospectus notes, the fact that two Milwaukee treatment plants are running below capacity would suggest that the city has plenty to spare and could make better use of its financial investment in the plants by sending the water elsewhere. And one obvious direction for that water to go is west, to the other side of the subcontinental divide in a process known as a water diversion. There's just one problem with that idea, and it has its roots in Canada.

In 1999, a Canadian company in Sault Ste. Marie obtained a permit to divert millions of gallons of water from Lake Superior and sell it to Asia. Controversy ensued, and the company withdrew its permit. Still, it prompted the Council of Great Lakes Governors, which includes leaders from the eight American Great Lakes states and the premiers from the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, to create a plan to put limitations on water diversions.

Known as the Draft Annex 2001, the compact spells out several criteria under which water could be pulled from Lake Michigan and other Great Lakes. The rule isn't final yet, and the Council of Great Lakes only recently closed its public comment period on the proposal. One aspect of the plan is most likely going to become final, though, and it could have a lasting effect on water usage in southeast Wisconsin.

According to the Draft Annex, water taken from the Great Lakes must be returned in equal quantity. For communities such as Oak Creek or Milwaukee, that's no big deal, since wastewater there naturally flows into Lake Michigan.

For communities on the western side of the subcontinental divide, it's more troublesome. If, say, the city of Waukesha wanted to pull water from Lake Michigan, it would have to replenish the lake with an equivalent amount of treated wastewater. The cost of installing the infrastructure would be "fairly significant," SEWRPC's Biebel said. It could prove so pricey that communities would revert to drilling the aquifers, according to the SEWRPC prospectus.

side from the costs and logistics of diverting Lake Michigan water west, there are political considerations. As Biebel put it: "Usually, the technical part is the easier part. The second part, the implementation, is harder."

It's not a big secret that Milwaukee and Waukesha are natural antagonists, enemies that fight over everything from locating new businesses to expanding freeways. If Milwaukee is going to be asked to send some of its supply of Lake Michigan water to Waukesha and other suburban communities, it's going to want something in return.

"Waukesha County sees the Great Lakes as the solution to their water problems," said Milwaukee Alderman Michael Murphy, who acknowledged that the Milwaukee Water Utility is likely the most economical source of water for the western region. "They've been advised of [looming water shortages] for 30 years.

They've just ignored it. Clearly, the Waukesha community has a very serious problem for its constituents."

In September, the Milwaukee Common Council adopted a resolution, co-sponsored by Murphy, supporting the goals of the Draft Annex. The resolution calls on the Annex to minimize any diversions from the Lake Michigan basin, and it also asks the Annex to place conditions on any out-of-basin diversions. For instance, outlying communities receiving lake water would have to adopt an affordable-housing plan, encourage environmentally responsible development, reduce sprawl and commit themselves to conservation.

Milwaukee leaders harbor a palpable mistrust of SEWRPC and its water study. Robert Greenstreet, the city architect and one of Mayor Tom Barrett's top development chiefs, recently referred to SEWRPC's "somewhat backdoor approach" to funding the water study by using real-estate recording fees instead of putting the matter before a public hearing. The gist of the complaint is that Milwaukee is the majority contributor to a study that will benefit the suburbs, and the city had little say in the matter.

It's similar to the city's complaints about SEWRPC's regional freeway plan. The $6 million blueprint would widen lanes throughout the area, including the Interstate 94 corridor in Milwaukee County, requiring the demolition of hundreds of homes and, from the city's perspective, potentially driving people and business out of the city. Milwaukee's representatives on the commission voted against it, city residents turned out in numbers to oppose it, and yet the commission adopted it in whole.

So if SEWRPC were to advise the region to approve a plan that sent water west as well, it would further raise concerns about "rapid sprawl and its impact on the Milwaukee economy," Murphy said.

"Milwaukee shouldn't be in the business of putting the gun to our head and pulling the trigger," he said of the council's demands for some kind of quid pro quo.

Mayor Tom Barrett, who signed the council's resolution, doesn't see it as quid pro quo, however. "I know that I don't own Lake Michigan."

Instead, affordable housing and conservation are goals the entire region should try to achieve, as is some kind of revenue-sharing agreement that would give Milwaukee or other lakeside communities a cut of suburban development. "I don't want to see Waukesha put at an economic disadvantage. I don't want to create a quid pro quo. For us to have a regional economy … at the end of the day, everyone has to walk away saying they're a winner."

At the same time, he said he's informed leaders in Waukesha County that the Milwaukee Water Utility won't become a subsidiary of the western counties. "I've cautioned them that this is not a situation where you just walk in and buy the water." That's in part because there are several precursors to a diversion, including the veto power of Great Lakes governors over the final version of the Annex.

Yet, as Barrett makes clear, leaders in Milwaukee are open to options, and it's unlikely that a historic feud between Waukesha and Milwaukee alone will decide the outcome. It's also not as if southeastern Wisconsin is the only part of the country dealing with water shortages. Disputes have grown strident in areas bordering the Colorado River, but, closer to home, local governments in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area hashed out a revenue-sharing agreement that gives the two big cities a slice of the development that takes place in the suburbs.

William Mielke, president and chief executive officer of Ruekert/Mielke Inc., an engineering firm based in Waukesha, masterminded a landmark revenue-sharing agreement for the Racine area when the city wanted its surrounding suburbs to chip in for an enormous wastewater-treatment plant project. He sees the same opportunity here, as long as everyone plays nice and understands they're trying to answer questions over water supply "that have never been asked before in the state of Wisconsin."

"The resolution of the water issue will surface various opportunities for revenue sharing," he said. "If the solution is Lake Michigan, then revenue sharing will come to bear. The water issue is going to be very large in the years to come." Mielke added that the cost of building the infrastructure for a Lake Michigan diversion wouldn't be prohibitive. "That's simply a matter of pipeage."

Jim Ryan, the village president of Hales Corners and the leader of the Southeast Municipal Executives, said local governments must "find ways to trust and work together." The municipal association is now working with state legislators on a vision document laying out common goals and themes, both political and economic, that it plans to unveil formally in early December.

Though water isn't specifically part of that document, the process could reinforce the notion that the region's local governments have the ability to embrace mutually agreed-upon objectives. "This kind of initiative could bear great fruit," Ryan said. "The water issue could very well float to the top. The sentiment to support it is there. There's so much time and opportunity to avert a standoff."

Builders and developers, meanwhile, are awaiting the outcome. "At this point, this industry isn't alarmed," said Matt Moroney, executive director of the Metropolitan Builders Association of Greater Milwaukee. "We're waiting for the facts so we can take an educated look."

If the region does follow the revenue-sharing path, what will development look like? Not much different than it does now, said Nancy Frank, director of urban planning programs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning. She said she's not convinced water supplies will affect large-scale development patterns. The Twin Cities and their suburbs, for instance, are spreading in predictable ways, only now the central cities are taking home a slice of a larger pie.

"It's no different in urban expansion, but it has allowed an additional revenue stream," said Frank, who thinks revenue sharing is in the forecast for the Milwaukee area. "I suspect the biggest impact here will be on the finer scale, not on the broader scale of urban sprawl."

Whatever the outcome, it's clear that water isn't being taken for granted as much as it used to be, said Peter McAvoy, director of environmental health at the 16th Street Community Health Center in Milwaukee. In the early 1980s, he served as the chairman of the Council of Great Lakes Governors panel on water diversions, and he said that for years the council was far more concerned by the demand for Great Lakes water from outside groups, not from neighboring
communities.

McAvoy said the entire region needs to understand that even though Lake Michigan looks huge, it's a "fragile resource that takes quite a while to replenish."

Conservation should be the primary objective for everyone if there's to be enough water to fuel future economic development and preserve the way of life the area's residents have grown accustomed to.

"People think that because water is cheap, you can use it and flush it away," McAvoy said. "The idea that it's free or cheap is something we need to get beyond. The idea that we can just use it willy-nilly is foolish."

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